We all know that summers in the western hemisphere are made of long bright days and balmy nights; endless blue skies and glittering waters; disappearing clothes and abundance of skin; playful little boys and girls; big bad bikers and innocuous bicyclists; open air concerts and handicrafts fairs; and cold sweet ice creams and tangy lemonades.
And July 4 is gloriously in the middle of it all. This weekend was sun, sun, sun. People and fireworks too. Not to mention food and books. Sprinkled with music and movies.
Sweet things are indeed made of this.
Saturday, 9:00 p.m., Deerfield: This year, 4th of July fireworks came to me. This is my fourth in this country and I’ve had the privilege of joining the festivities in four different locations: Torrance, LA in a trailer park, Peoria, IL on the riverfront, Chicago at the Navy Pier, and the football field across the road here in
Deerfield.
The crowd as usual was awesome. People started trickling in with their folding chairs and picnic blankets from 7:00 p.m. onwards. By 8:30 p.m. when I got there, the place was overflowing. I found a small bit of grass which had an uninterrupted view and squatted. Dusk fell very slowly--excruciatingly so for the little boys around me. We knew we were edging close to the festivities when several lantern-like balloons were set out to float up, up, and away against a pink twilight sky. And then at 9:25 p.m., without much ado, a single rocket went up the sky and inundated it with sparkles. The crowd screamed.
For the next 20 minutes, the sky was a riot of colors and lights red, blue, pink, gold, and green. I clicked away like crazy. The man sitting next to me tapped my shoulder and said, “Isn’t that light pole getting in the way of your pictures? Why don’t you move here?” He pointed out a better place. Well, that’s midwest for you--people are generally so darn nice to complete strangers.
More pics on http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=225453&id=547851114&l=ec5872141a.
Sunday, 3:15 p.m., Grant Park, Chicago: The Taste of Chicago festival allegedly attracts 6 million visitors annually. On Sunday, the last day of this 10-day festival at Grant park, at least a 100,000 people were there, braving the 90+ deg F temperature and debilitating humidity. The atmosphere was indescribable.
There were food outlets as far as the eye could see on all four sides.
All stalls were doing brisk business. There was a sea of humanity engaged predominantly in the act of eating all around. The air was thick with chatter, music, and bewildering number of flavors of food. The place felt like a small steaming valley, surrounded as we were with the towering Chicago skyline on three sides.
The heat considerably diminished my enjoyment of the day, even though I am from the tropics and should have a little more tolerance. I was embarrassingly very close to swooning/throwing up/having a heart attack within five minutes of being at Grant Park and continued to be so for the two hours I did spend there. I was also hamstrung by the fact that the festival was trying to be the Beef of Chicago. I think a small city of 10,000 cows would’ve been expended on July 4th alone.
I stuck to African cuisine of red beans, coconut rice, fried plantains, and goat. (Ok, so I was sticking as close to Indian cuisine as I could--so shoot me.) The food was surprisingly good. I also had 4 - 5 measly shrimps on a stick which I thought was daylight robbery.
Sunday, 4:30 p.m., Petrillo Music Shell: Without planning to do so, I accidentally wandered into the tail end of a concert. The performers were Passion Pit, a Massachusetts-based band. The performers looked like college kids rather than musicians but whatever I heard, I liked. Not that I am an authority on the subject.
What really rocked my boat was the crowd. This is my very first open air concert of this size and yout
hfulness. Or the sheer number of bare bodies. The crowd was obviously having the time of their lives.
I clicked to my heart’s content and tapped my toes to couple of their songs as well. Did I mention I liked what I heard?
More pics on http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=226028&id=547851114&l=35272ec1ee
Monday 2:00 p.m., Deerfield Public Library: Some books make you cry--with gratefulness that such magnificence, such beauty exists in this world. For a book to be in this category, it must be: (a) Hard bound (b) bulky (c) should have soft beautiful paper (d) should have beautiful illustrations/photographs if it can help it and (e) should be well written on an interesting subject (obviously).
At the very nice Deerfield Public Library, I wept over three such books. One was a sexy, sexy annotated compilation of Sherlock Holmes, with period illustrations/ paintings and detailed margin notes. Another was a book on the history of religion in the world by Mircea Eliade. It was so lucidly and crisply w
ritten. My later research shows that Mr. Eliade is quite a dude. The third one was that epochal publication by Time - “Chronicle of the 20th Century.” Page after page of award winning photographs; history caught in a frame. Oh man!
Saturday at the movies: Watched Knight and Day. The story was obviously written on a piece of paper napkin folded twice over at a bar while guzzling beer. But who cares? Tom and Cameron share a great on-screen chemistry, the movie is continuously funny, and the action sequences are fantastic. What more can one ask for in a summer movie?
Sunday, Random strangers, Metra Train: The best part of traveling in the midwest is the warmth and friendliness of random strangers. The young woman traveling with me into Chicago told me that she lived in downtown, had come down to the suburb for a party and stayed over at her parents’ place in which she was not comfortable as it is not “home” anymore. Did I say friendly? Make it willing-to-share-personal-details-with-alacrity.
Take this mother-teenage daughter duo who sat in front of me while coming back from downtown. They caught my attention with the way they talked to each other like girlfriends, rather than mom-daughter. Then the mother turned and included me in the conversation. Within five minutes flat, I knew all about their Indian pediatrician, her late husband who died of brain cancer, her in-laws who blame her for his death, and the state of entertainment at Fox Lake. I was thankful when the train reached my station.
Three more months of such perfectness. Sigh!
And July 4 is gloriously in the middle of it all. This weekend was sun, sun, sun. People and fireworks too. Not to mention food and books. Sprinkled with music and movies.
Sweet things are indeed made of this.
Saturday, 9:00 p.m., Deerfield: This year, 4th of July fireworks came to me. This is my fourth in this country and I’ve had the privilege of joining the festivities in four different locations: Torrance, LA in a trailer park, Peoria, IL on the riverfront, Chicago at the Navy Pier, and the football field across the road here in
Deerfield.The crowd as usual was awesome. People started trickling in with their folding chairs and picnic blankets from 7:00 p.m. onwards. By 8:30 p.m. when I got there, the place was overflowing. I found a small bit of grass which had an uninterrupted view and squatted. Dusk fell very slowly--excruciatingly so for the little boys around me. We knew we were edging close to the festivities when several lantern-like balloons were set out to float up, up, and away against a pink twilight sky. And then at 9:25 p.m., without much ado, a single rocket went up the sky and inundated it with sparkles. The crowd screamed.
For the next 20 minutes, the sky was a riot of colors and lights red, blue, pink, gold, and green. I clicked away like crazy. The man sitting next to me tapped my shoulder and said, “Isn’t that light pole getting in the way of your pictures? Why don’t you move here?” He pointed out a better place. Well, that’s midwest for you--people are generally so darn nice to complete strangers.
More pics on http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=225453&id=547851114&l=ec5872141a.
Sunday, 3:15 p.m., Grant Park, Chicago: The Taste of Chicago festival allegedly attracts 6 million visitors annually. On Sunday, the last day of this 10-day festival at Grant park, at least a 100,000 people were there, braving the 90+ deg F temperature and debilitating humidity. The atmosphere was indescribable.
There were food outlets as far as the eye could see on all four sides.
All stalls were doing brisk business. There was a sea of humanity engaged predominantly in the act of eating all around. The air was thick with chatter, music, and bewildering number of flavors of food. The place felt like a small steaming valley, surrounded as we were with the towering Chicago skyline on three sides.The heat considerably diminished my enjoyment of the day, even though I am from the tropics and should have a little more tolerance. I was embarrassingly very close to swooning/throwing up/having a heart attack within five minutes of being at Grant Park and continued to be so for the two hours I did spend there. I was also hamstrung by the fact that the festival was trying to be the Beef of Chicago. I think a small city of 10,000 cows would’ve been expended on July 4th alone.
I stuck to African cuisine of red beans, coconut rice, fried plantains, and goat. (Ok, so I was sticking as close to Indian cuisine as I could--so shoot me.) The food was surprisingly good. I also had 4 - 5 measly shrimps on a stick which I thought was daylight robbery.
Sunday, 4:30 p.m., Petrillo Music Shell: Without planning to do so, I accidentally wandered into the tail end of a concert. The performers were Passion Pit, a Massachusetts-based band. The performers looked like college kids rather than musicians but whatever I heard, I liked. Not that I am an authority on the subject.
What really rocked my boat was the crowd. This is my very first open air concert of this size and yout
hfulness. Or the sheer number of bare bodies. The crowd was obviously having the time of their lives.I clicked to my heart’s content and tapped my toes to couple of their songs as well. Did I mention I liked what I heard?
More pics on http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=226028&id=547851114&l=35272ec1ee
Monday 2:00 p.m., Deerfield Public Library: Some books make you cry--with gratefulness that such magnificence, such beauty exists in this world. For a book to be in this category, it must be: (a) Hard bound (b) bulky (c) should have soft beautiful paper (d) should have beautiful illustrations/photographs if it can help it and (e) should be well written on an interesting subject (obviously).
At the very nice Deerfield Public Library, I wept over three such books. One was a sexy, sexy annotated compilation of Sherlock Holmes, with period illustrations/ paintings and detailed margin notes. Another was a book on the history of religion in the world by Mircea Eliade. It was so lucidly and crisply w
ritten. My later research shows that Mr. Eliade is quite a dude. The third one was that epochal publication by Time - “Chronicle of the 20th Century.” Page after page of award winning photographs; history caught in a frame. Oh man!Saturday at the movies: Watched Knight and Day. The story was obviously written on a piece of paper napkin folded twice over at a bar while guzzling beer. But who cares? Tom and Cameron share a great on-screen chemistry, the movie is continuously funny, and the action sequences are fantastic. What more can one ask for in a summer movie?
Sunday, Random strangers, Metra Train: The best part of traveling in the midwest is the warmth and friendliness of random strangers. The young woman traveling with me into Chicago told me that she lived in downtown, had come down to the suburb for a party and stayed over at her parents’ place in which she was not comfortable as it is not “home” anymore. Did I say friendly? Make it willing-to-share-personal-details-with-alacrity.
Take this mother-teenage daughter duo who sat in front of me while coming back from downtown. They caught my attention with the way they talked to each other like girlfriends, rather than mom-daughter. Then the mother turned and included me in the conversation. Within five minutes flat, I knew all about their Indian pediatrician, her late husband who died of brain cancer, her in-laws who blame her for his death, and the state of entertainment at Fox Lake. I was thankful when the train reached my station.Three more months of such perfectness. Sigh!
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